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![]() The Truth Seeker cover dated Sept.-Dec. 2018 | |
Editor-in-Chief | Roderick Bradford |
---|---|
Categories | History, secularism, censorship |
Frequency | Triannual |
Publisher | Roderick Bradford / The Truth Seeker Company |
First issue | 1873 |
Based in | San Diego, U.S. |
Website | thetruthseeker |
ISSN | 0041-3712 |
The Truth Seeker is an American periodical published since 1873. [1] It was considered the most influential Freethought publication during the period following the Civil War into the first decades of the 20th century, known as the Golden Age of Freethought. Though there were other influential Freethought periodicals, Truth Seeker was the only one with a national circulation. [1] The headquarters is in San Diego, California. The Truth Seeker is the world’s oldest freethought publication, and one of the oldest periodicals in America. Among general-readership titles, only Harper’s Magazine , The Atlantic , Scientific American , and The Nation are older. [2]
In the first issue, on September 1, 1873, editor D. M. Bennett and his wife Mary Wicks Bennett proclaimed that the publication would devote itself to: "science, morals, free thought, free discussions, liberalism, sexual equality, labor reform progression, free education, and whatever tends to elevate and emancipate the human race." [1]
Subsequent editors included Eugene and George E. Macdonald, [3] Charles Lee Smith (along with his associate editors Woolsey Teller and later Robert E. Kuttner), James Hervey Johnson, Bonnie Lange, [4] and Roderick Bradford. [5] For several years, Susan H. Wixon had editorial charge of the children's department. [6]
In 1988, Madalyn Murray O'Hair put out several issues under the masthead during the course of an unsuccessful attempt to take over the company; however, the courts ruled against her ownership. [7]
Morris Altman, Mark Twain, Robert G. Ingersoll, Katie Kehm Smith, [8] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Clarence Darrow, Harry Houdini, Steve Allen, Paul Krassner, and Gay Talese are or have been contributors, subscribers, and supporters of The Truth Seeker. [9]
Starting in the 1950s, the Truth Seeker started publishing explicitly racist content. [10] Under the editorship of Charles Lee Smith beginning in 1937, Smith, Woolsey Teller and their successor James Hervey Johnson championed antisemitism, scientific racism and white supremacy. [11] Anthropologist Robert Sussman described the Truth Seeker as a "virulent anti-Semitic publication". [12]
In 1995, authors Mark Fackler and Charles H. Lippy noted:
"Under Smith and Johnson, the paper became more conservative and advocated white supremacy along with atheism. While Northern European ethnocentrism had been an implicit theme since the paper's founding, its open racism and xenophobia offended many readers. In recent years its circulation has declined to less than a thousand." [13]
Freethought historian Tom Flynn noted that "1950 to 1988 marked its most troubled period, when the periodical embraced racism, eugenics, and anti-Semitism, but precisely because of that achieved the smallest impact in its history." [14]
After Johnson's death in 1988, Bonnie Lange assumed the role of publisher and editor and the "racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacism, eugenics advocacy, and other marginal interests of the Smith-Teller and Johnson years were conclusively abandoned." [14]
Antisemitism is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. This sentiment is a form of racism, and a person who harbours it is called an antisemite. Primarily, antisemitic tendencies may be motivated by negative sentiment towards Jews as a people or by negative sentiment towards Jews with regard to Judaism. In the former case, usually presented as racial antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by the belief that Jews constitute a distinct race with inherent traits or characteristics that are repulsive or inferior to the preferred traits or characteristics within that person's society. In the latter case, known as religious antisemitism, a person's hostility is driven by their religion's perception of Jews and Judaism, typically encompassing doctrines of supersession that expect or demand Jews to turn away from Judaism and submit to the religion presenting itself as Judaism's successor faith—this is a common theme within the other Abrahamic religions. The development of racial and religious antisemitism has historically been encouraged by the concept of anti-Judaism, which is distinct from antisemitism itself.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
The Golden Age of Freethought is the mid 19th-century period in United States history which saw the development of the socio-political movement promoting freethought. Anti-authoritarian and intellectually liberating historical eras had existed many times in history, notably in eighteenth century France. But the period roughly from 1875 to 1914 is referred to by at least one contemporary writer as "the high-water mark of freethought as an influential movement in American society". It began around 1856 and lasted at least through the end of the century; author Susan Jacoby places the end of the Golden Age at the start of World War I.
Richard Lynn was a controversial English psychologist and self-described "scientific racist" who advocated for a genetic relationship between race and intelligence. He was the editor-in-chief of Mankind Quarterly, a white supremacist journal. He was a professor emeritus of psychology at Ulster University, but had the title withdrawn by the university in 2018. Lynn was lecturer in psychology at the University of Exeter and professor of psychology at the Economic and Social Research Institute, Dublin, and at the University of Ulster at Coleraine.
The American Mercury was an American magazine published from 1924 to 1981. It was founded as the brainchild of H. L. Mencken and drama critic George Jean Nathan. The magazine featured writing by some of the most important writers in the United States through the 1920s and 1930s.
Mordecai Fowler Ham Jr., was an American Independent Baptist evangelist and temperance movement leader.
Racial antisemitism is prejudice against Jews based on a belief or assertion that Jews constitute a distinct race that has inherent traits or characteristics that appear in some way abhorrent or inherently inferior or otherwise different from the traits or characteristics of the rest of a society. The abhorrence may find expression in the form of discrimination, stereotypes or caricatures. Racial antisemitism may present Jews, as a group, as a threat in some way to the values or safety of a society. Racial antisemitism can seem deeper-rooted than religious antisemitism, because for religious antisemites conversion of Jews remains an option and once converted the "Jew" is gone. In the context of racial antisemitism Jews cannot get rid of their Jewishness.
Robert E. Kuttner was an American biologist and white supremacist.
Charles Lee Smith was an American atheist and white supremacist author and activist widely known for being the last successful conviction for blasphemy in the United States.
The Free Religious Association (FRA) was an American freethought organization that opposed organized religion and aimed to form in its place a universal rational religion free of dogma or theology based on evolutionary science.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents.
Amelia Jenks Bloomer was an American newspaper editor, women's rights and temperance advocate. Even though she did not create the women's clothing reform style known as bloomers, her name became associated with it because of her early and strong advocacy. In her work with The Lily, she became the first woman to own, operate and edit a newspaper for women.
The Occidental Observer is an American far-right online publication that covers politics and society from a white nationalist and antisemitic perspective. It is run by the Charles Martel Society. Kevin B. MacDonald, a retired American professor of evolutionary psychology, is its editor. It is an offshoot of The Occidental Quarterly.
Woolsey Teller was an American atheist rationalist writer and white supremacist.
James Hervey Johnson was an American atheist freethinker, writer and editor of The Truth Seeker, formerly run by Charles Lee Smith.
DeRobigne Mortimer Bennett, best known as D.M. Bennett, was the founder and publisher of The Truth Seeker, a radical freethought and reform American periodical.
The American Association for the Advancement of Atheism was an atheistic and antireligious organization established in 1925. It was founded by Charles Lee Smith, and the organization's "only creedal requirement was a formal profession of atheism".
Susan H. Wixon was an American freethought writer, editor, feminist, and educator of the long nineteenth century. She was a member of the Fall River School Board for 24 years. Wixon especially espoused the cause of women and children. In both politics and religion, she held radical views. She was the author of Apples of gold, and other stories for boys and girls (1876), Summer days at Onset (1887), Woman : four centuries of progress (1893), Sunday observance, or, How to spend Sunday (1893), Right living (1894), All in a lifetime : a romance (1894), and Some familiar places (1901).
The Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) is a document meant to outline the bounds of antisemitic speech and conduct, particularly with regard to Zionism, Israel and Palestine. Its creation was motivated by a desire to confront antisemitism and by objections to the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism, which critics have said stifles legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and curbs free speech. The drafting of the declaration was initiated in June 2020 under the auspices of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem by eight coordinators, most of whom were university professors. Upon its completion the declaration was signed by about 200 scholars in various fields and released in March 2021.
"Negroes Are Anti-Semitic Because They're Anti-White" was a landmark 1967 essay written by American writer James Baldwin that first appeared in the Sunday magazine edition of The New York Times, describing the tensions that existed in African American–Jewish relation.